Discussion for article #226136
I see a landmine here. Gay people don’t have as many rights as corporations do according to the old white men on the court.
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Gay marriage threatens many Utahn’s traditional marriages between a man and his wives.
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I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Roberts refuses to hear this case. He knows the inevitable outcome that is ahead, and would probably just prefer the lower courts make all the rulings, and just let them stand.
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Hurry up! Before Ruth Bader leaves the court (for whatever reason).
I’ve wondered about this. Unless there’s an adverse ruling from a circuit court that has to be resolved – and there is none so far, more than a year after Windsor – the Supremes don’t have any particular obligation to take up this issue, and I don’t know why they would want to.
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I would further add that Roberts main loyalty in law is to corporations. And gay marriage isn’t a big deal for them. Quite frankly, they would probably prefer it be legalized nationally, as it helps with recruiting and determining benefit packages for national and multi national corporations.
He of course will be tactfully aware of where rest of the republican base is on the matter, which is why he would prefer that the SCOTUS doesn’t have to weigh in on the issue again.
Its interesting watching those wedge issues from 10-20 years ago being slowly turned against the republican party itself now.
Scalia’s gift just keeps on giving.
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Why is it up to Roberts? A writ of certeorari requires 4 justices. AFAIK the chief has no special power in taking cases.
I expect that Roberts won’t want to take it up, but there may well be four justices who do. Scalia who is always itching for a fight even when he knows he’s going to lose, Kennedy who is generally a solid conservative but views himself as the white knight advancing gay rights in this country, and at least a couple of liberals who see it as the right thing to do.
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So then if they take this case up and side with the appeals court, does that mean that gay marriage is legal everywhere?
Conversely, if they take the case up and side against the appeals court then does that mean that all the gay marriage bans are back in place?
Or does whatever ruling they make only apply to Utah?
If the SCT were to take this case, and it decides that bans on gay marriage are unconstitutional, that would apply everywhere. If they were to reverse the 10th Cir., it might or might not apply elsewhere, depending on the reasoning. If it were procedural, it would have no relevance to any other case. If they flat-out rejected the conclusion that it is unconstitutional to ban gay marriage, well, that would decide it for everyone, barring some narrow reasoning based on the particulars of the UT law. If they were to affirm the 10th Cir. on something other than a broad constitutional basis – that this particular statute was unconstitutional for reasons that don’t apply to other statutes, for example – then it might apply only to the UT statute and not even to the laws elsewhere within the 10th Cir. But the most likely outcome is a flat-out holding that it is unconstitutional to ban gay marriage, or that it is not unconstitutional, and either of those would apply nationwide. They won’t take this case to decide it on narrow grounds.
He does and he doesn’t. Officially, you are correct, the Chief Justice is afforded no broad swath of extra powers in the Constitution. And if 4 justices really really want to hear a case that the Chief Justice doesn’t, they certainly can go ahead and grant cert on their own
But he is responsible for managing the court schedule and usually has quite a bit of influence over which cases are going to be heard and which ones aren’t. And there are going to be unofficial consequences of bucking his direction. Remember, these people have to work together for a very long time. Decades.
But I would expand my earlier statement and say I doubt there is much motivation for 4 of the justices to be particularly compelled to hear this case. Both sides are quite aware of how all of these cases are being decided by the lower courts. The liberal justices are probably perfectly fine with it, and Roberts and Alito are both going to be more motivated by the corporate side of things. That only leaves Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy…and Kennedy isn’t in the Scalia camp on this topic.
Hmm. I view the alignment rather differently. Why would the 4 liberals be particularly inclined to grant cert to hear a case that was ruled the way they would have ruled anyway? Do nothing and all those rulings stand. Grant cert and you face another debate with Scalia and co…and another one of his absurd minority opinions. Also bear in mind, while Kennedy may want to be the gay white knight(though I suspect he wouldn’t refer to himself in exactly those same words), does he feel strongly enough to increase the friction with rest of the conservatives that he usually votes with?
Now I do agree that Scalia is probably fairly keen on hearing this, but its doubtful he would have 3 others with him on that, and even more doubtful that he could sway Kennedy on this issue to join them, since he hasn’t been able to do so in the past.
I dig.
So IF they take the case, it is most likely that they are taking the case because they want to make a final statement on the matter.